Let’s face it, the staffing shortage is not going to end anytime soon and we have to think outside the box to teach and support our students. That is why starting a peer program in your school is that “outside the box” idea. Maybe you have been thinking about trying it out for years or you don’t know where to start, there is not a better time than NOW!
Step 1: Get Buy-In From Your School Administration
First things first, you will need to get the approval from your school administrators. Present the idea to create a peer model program with a list of all the benefits a peer program has to offer.
Here are a few to get you started:
- Provides positive social interactions and social relationships
- Peers are widely available
- Not only do our students benefit, but peers themselves can benefit from peer modeling
- Peers are future employers, co-workers, neighbors, congregation members
- Peer programs are feasible to implement and reach a wide number of students
- Students with disabilities meet and develop friendships with a wide range of peers whom they might not otherwise have met
Step 2: Advertise Your Peer Model Program
When I worked at the secondary level, the counselors would begin talking to students about class options in early February for the following school year. This is a great time to advertise your program! In the SPED world, our busy schedules can make it difficult for us to be available. In order to make sure all grades heard the same information and it came directly from me, I created a video discussing the class, what options were available to students, and how to sign up.
Step 3: Peer Applications
When it came to peer applications, students were required to answer a few questions and obtain two teacher recommendations. Through the application process, I looked for students that expressed a willingness to participate, exhibited good social skills, language skills, and a positive role model, among other skills.
Download the peer application here: Peers in Learning Application
Step 4: Training
Just like training your paraprofessionals, training your peers is extremely important.
Here is an agenda to help guide your training:
- Introductions (include yourself, paras, related services, anyone who works in your classroom)
- Rationale for their involvement
- Goals for the peer support arrangement
- General goals for the class
- Confidentiality and respectful language
- Expectations specific to the classroom
- Technology and communication systems
- Basic instructional and support strategies
- Student motivation and feedback
- When to seek assistance
- Other student-specific information (BUT remember to keep confidentiality)
This is a great video to incorporate into your peer training! Just Like You – Autism
Another great resource to guide your peer training. Autism Tool Kit
Step 5: Support and Monitor
Once the program gets going, it will be important to be there to support and monitor peer interactions. Continue to train and model to create relationships that will last a lifetime.
4 Responses
When setting up a peer model program, should the peer models be the same age/grade level of the students in the special education class or is it ok if they are a little older (for example: preschool special education students with third or fifth grade peer models).
If you can get the peer models to be the same age/grade level or at least close in age, it would be best as it would allow the students to learn age-appropriate social skills. When I first started my peer program, I offered the class during our tier time and it was open to all grade levels. That is still the case now, but I also opened it up during their exploratory (specials time – PE, art, music, etc.) and it was with the same grade peer. At the middle school level, it was a little easier with only three grade levels. Maybe you could try grouping your younger students with peers in grades K-2 and your older students with grades 3-5.
Thank you! This provides a great framework to begin implementing peer model programs. Thank you for the examples for the peer applications. I find it so important to be able to find those students who truly want to help as opposed to just getting out of class. I have seen some schools require a “letter of recommendation” from a parent, teacher, or counselor as well.
You are welcome! I love the letter of recommendation idea! Thank you for sharing.